Tag: events

One thing I’ve discovered in the last few hectic, crazy months: event planning is NOT easy!

I’m planning and organizing a show in the Orlando area for arcade, pinball and gaming.

Starting off this adventure I made the discovery that not only do meeting/event planners speak a foreign language they also have their own secret society of service providers.

For example, that space where you have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres before an event? It’s called “pre-function” space.

Wow.

PRE. FUNCTION.

As in – before the function.

SO-ooooo clever.

However, I learned the hard way that you will not be taken seriously if you don’t know the language.

Employ Babel Fish if needed

Another example – who knew that meeting rooms don’t come wired for electricity? That’s right. Don’t try walking into a meeting room and plugging stuff in. The circuits in there don’t power much more than a hair dryer.

Instead the true circuits are installed AND un-installed after each customer.

As this “service” is provided by a third-party and not the hotel I see it as an ingenious monopoly designed to suck as much money out of customers as possible (coff coff….rip…coff…coff…off). This opinion may be what caused the electric company representative I was speaking with to declare “I was too difficult to deal with” and hang up.

Difficult?! DIFFICULT!! **takes 10 calming breaths**

Breathe in, count to three, breathe out

Another example – Interacting with many of the hotel sales staff was akin to dealing with the Keystone Cops. Some still haven’t answered my emails or calls from months ago, despite clearly asking me on my request for proposal the cutoff date for booking the event. What an odd and disappointing response from a team of sales “professionals”.

Here’s a list of the top 10 things that you should NOT do when visiting a haunted attraction. Doing these things instantly tells the scare-actors at the event that you are the LAMEST human on the planet. It’s almost as great when you wear that I’m With Stupid shirt.

Top 10 Things Not To Do At A Haunted Attraction:

1 – Be the annoying first person of the group. You know the one who has to point out every single scare thus ruining things for all the people behind them. This is not cool. Don’t do it. It just makes you look like a tool.

2 – SCREAM in the scare-actor’s face in an attempt to scare them. Umm…we get paid to scream at you for a whole month. Do you really think that you are going to scare us? Don’t you think we can scream longer and louder than you? *sigh*

3 – Shout out, “That was lame” or “You didn’t scare me”, after a scare. Really? I didn’t scare you? Is that why you jumped 3 feet into the air and are now on the other side of the hallway from me? It’s because my scare was lame? Puh-lease.

4 – Ask out the scare-actors. We do not want your phone number. We already know we are hot. No, we will not marry you. Go find a real life girlfriend. If you can’t do that then rent one.

5 – Steal and/or touch things in the haunted house. There are 40 of us working in the haunted house. We can see in the dark and fog, and you can’t. Don’t try and steal things as if no one is watching. We are always watching you. Right now I am watching you….buwuahahaha!….cough…cough…stealing is wrong. End of story.

6 – SMOKE. For goodness sake, do not light up your cigarette, joint or peace pipe in the haunted house. We do not want to breathe in any more smoke or fog than we have to. Besides, have some consideration for the rest of the people trying to enjoy the house. If that’s not enough I’ll simply mention that there are copious amounts of cops stationed at every house and scare zone. Can we say busted?

7 – Touch the scare-actors. Yes, we are HUMANS. We are doing a job. We are not there to be fondled, groped or otherwise molested. We will follow you out of the house and have you expelled from the park. Don’t for a second think that I will not touch you back in self-defense! You have been warned.

8 – Bring your toddler in the house. I do not want to jump out from behind my hidey-hole only to see you holding your toddler’s hands for support as they slowly walk their way through the house. Do you really wonder why your toddler doesn’t sleep through the night? Save your child a lot of time, money and psychiatric treatment and keep them away from serious scary haunted events until they are at least 10 or 12 years old. Hire a babysitter.

9 – Walk through the house hunched over or grabbing the shirt of the person in front of you in a death grip. If you do this I guarantee you WILL be on the receiving end of as many scares as humanly possible. Scare-actors are spookily good at sensing weakness in you. Try as you might to hide it we will sniff out the scaredycats! Avoiding these obvious tells might save you a little heartache and make our job a tad bit tougher.

10 – Ask us not to scare you. You are at a HAUNTED event. You paid good money to come to said event. We WILL scare you when at all possible. We certainly wouldn’t want you to leave without getting your money’s worth.